


In One Bright Moment

by Maiden_of_Asgard



Category: Loki - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avenger Loki (Marvel), Developing Relationship, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Loki (Marvel) Lives, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), The Tesseract (Marvel), Time Skips, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 14:23:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21339676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiden_of_Asgard/pseuds/Maiden_of_Asgard
Summary: At first, his love for you soothes away his nightmares. The whispers of the Tesseract and its promises of power quieten. He has you, so what more does he need?But you're only mortal.Soon, his love for you drives his nightmares. He has you... and he cannot afford to lose you.He'd do anything to avoid losing you.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Comments: 29
Kudos: 187





	In One Bright Moment

No one ever believed that the God of Lies could make the best of second chances.

History was in their favor; he’d disappear, presumed dead, and then he’d always come back with some new scheme. When he was in the mood, he’d show up on Asgard for a time to ‘repay his debts,’ or if he was truly desperate for a safe haven, he’d even show his face on Midgard. 

He’d told you once that humans always needed someone to save them, even if they didn’t want to admit it.

It was true, in a way. No matter what Loki had done in the past, no matter how many times he wiggled out of his bargains and took off to chase his own fortunes, something more frightening than the Trickster God would inevitable appear and wreak havoc, and by the time he bothered to slum it up with the mortals again, the Avengers would be desperate enough to take him in, even if they made it clear that they didn’t trust him.

He’d told you not to trust him, either.

But then he saved your life one day, caught in the quickly-collapsing wreckage of a destroyed helicarrier base in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and even though he told you that it was only because it took him little to no effort to drag you along with him as he escaped, the wall you’d kept began to crack.

And then there was the cold, stormy morning in the base in the far north, when he’d offered you his ostentatious fur jacket, reminding you that he ‘didn’t really need it, after all.’

A few months later, he disappeared again, and you tried to convince yourself that you weren’t disappointed. He was just a temporary ally, and a reluctant one, at best. It was stupid to get attached. Loki had a history of hanging people out to dry, once he got bored. That’s what everyone told you, and you tried to forget about him.

He showed up only two weeks after that, though, waltzing back into the Tower like he’d never left it. You’d had to leave the room to hide the embarrassing surge of emotion that you felt at seeing him again, but not before he’d noticed.

_ Of course _ he noticed. Loki always noticed everything. It was one of the reasons he was such a valuable asset, one of the reasons that you were supposed to tolerate him, in the first place.

After he’d gotten his customary dressing-down from the Avengers, he’d come to find you, some instinct seeming to lead him directly to the small break room where you’d run to hide. You pretended that you were only there for coffee, even though you knew he wasn’t buying it.

Loki leaned against the doorframe, an insufferably-smug smile on his face. “Are you happy to see me again?” he asked. “How have you not died of boredom without me?”

“Barely noticed you were gone,” you replied. 

“Right.” His hair was a little shorter than when he’d left, and it somehow made him seem more youthful. He eyes raked down your body, and you shivered, though you didn’t entirely understand why. “Who’s been saving you in my absence, then?”

“I haven’t needed saving.” You clutched your mug, unnerved by the fact that he seemed to know just how much you’d wanted him to return. “Things have actually calmed down since you’ve been gone, so maybe you’re just trouble.”

“I am most certainly trouble,” Loki said, his smile widening. “But you _ have _ missed me, haven’t you? Don’t lie, now - I am the God of Lies, you know.”

“I was disappointed that you’d break your promises to your teammates. It’s normal to be disappointed by liars, Loki.”

There was a brief silence, and you fidgeted under his calculating gaze. “I came back,” he said finally, pushing himself off of the doorframe to come loom over you. “You weren’t expecting me to come back, were you?”

“Not in my lifetime, probably.”

Loki laughed. “Well, that was reason enough to come back so quickly, wasn’t it? Mortal lives are so short. It would be a shame if you were gone by the time I returned.”

You hadn’t known what to say to that, so you’d just brushed past him and hurried down the hall, telling yourself that you had work to do. He hadn’t just admitted to coming all the way back to Earth just to see you again, had he? It was far more likely that he’d just been looking to twist the knife about your own mortality.

So, you’d avoided him. When he tried to sidle up and chat with you in the kitchen, you’d brushed past him and gone about your business. When you had any kind of reports to deliver, you’d drop them on his desk, preferably when he wasn’t sitting behind it. Loki seemed to take it as a challenge, and you’d be lying if you said that you didn’t enjoy tormenting him a little. 

He’d gotten tired of it one day, the relentless game of cat-and-mouse, and he’d cornered you in the stairwell near the training room. It was perfect timing, on his part; your muscles were sore and aching from your workout, and you didn’t have the energy to go sprinting up the stairs past him. 

“What do you want?” you asked. 

“I want you.”

You were speechless. Loki was all teasing and silvered words; you never would’ve expected anything so blunt. “What?”

“I want you,” he repeated, caging you between his arms. “I came back to this miserable planet just to see you, mortal. I _ want _you.”

His eyes were mesmerizing, and you suddenly felt self-conscious about how sweaty and disheveled you were. You cleared your throat. “I don’t know what you expect me to say to that, Loki.”

“I would like it if you’d come back to my rooms.”

“You know we aren’t supposed to have unsupervised leisure time with you, given the… incidents.”

“I’m not going to kidnap you or use you to escape,” he said. “I have no need for that.” He crooked a finger under your chin, forcing you to actually look at him. “But I _ do _ need to know what you’d feel like beneath me.”

“That is completely inappropriate,” you spluttered, “and—”

“Tell me to leave, then,” he interrupted, stepping back and dropping his hands to his sides. “Tell me that you haven’t yearned for me, too, and I’ll leave Midgard entirely, and you won’t have to endure me any longer.”

_ Don’t leave. _

“Don’t be dramatic,” you tell him. “I didn’t say any of that. There’s no reason to go running off-planet.”

His smile slowly spread. “So you will come back to my rooms with me?”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

“You haven’t said that you won’t. I can promise you pleasure beyond your wildest imaginings. What do you have to lose?”

“My dignity? You seem like the type who would try to use something like that to your advantage. Blackmail, maybe.”

He held up his hands, the perfect picture of innocence. “I won’t tell a soul if you don’t.”

You should’ve walked away. 

Two hours later, you were even more sore and sweaty than before, tangled in his no-longer-crisp black bedsheets. Loki ran his hand along the bared swell of your hip, humming appreciatively. “Such stamina,” he teased. “How long will it be before I can have you again?”

“Dunno,” you mumbled, sinking into the thick fog of post-coital satisfaction and sleepiness. “Can’t think.”

Loki laughed. 

You slept in his bed that night. Certainly neither of you had intended such a thing, but you were exhausted, and sleeping in his rooms was much less mortifying than having him carry you through the halls back to yours. When you woke up in his arms, neither of you seemed to know how to act, and you’d both decided not to mention it. Sex was one thing, but cuddling was something entirely different. So, after a slightly uncomfortable breakfast of frozen waffles and chocolate milk - the only things he had in his fridge - Loki helped you sneak back to your room.

It was only a one-time thing. A mistake. You were sure of it. Hell, given that it was Loki, you were kind of expecting to find out that he’d disappeared again one night. Hadn’t he gotten what he wanted?

He didn’t disappear in the middle of the night, though, and you only made it three more days before you found yourself back in his bed. “You’re beautiful,” Loki whispered as he moved inside of you, his lips pressed against your ear. “You’re mine.”

It felt right. You hadn’t talked about any kind of exclusivity, or even a relationship, but there was something in the way that he’d begun to look at you that made you yearn for more. “If I’m yours,” you told him the next morning, “does that make you mine?”

Loki seemed surprised, but he slowly smiled. “It could,” he said, “but I can be very difficult to pin down. Are you sure you’re up for the task?”

You toyed with a loose thread on his sheets. “Maybe. I don’t… I don’t know what we’re doing here. I don’t want to get attached if you’re going to leave. You said I couldn’t trust you, right? So why should I trust that you’re not going to hurt me?”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t the answer you were hoping for, and you stare at the sheets, uncertain. 

“I am growing attached to you, for what it’s worth.”

“What?” 

There’s no trace of deception on his face, no insincerity. “I won’t say that a romantic entanglement with me is a wise decision, but I hope that you’ll find it worth the risks. There is something… something here, with you. It is something that I would like to pursue.”

“Is that a lie?”

“No,” he said. “It is nothing but the truth. What you choose to do with that truth is entirely up to you.”

You told him that you’d take some time to think about it. Rushing into some kind of quasi-relationship with Loki seemed like an incredibly bad decision, regardless of your budding feelings for him. It would be better to keep things casual. If you didn’t expect anything from him, then he couldn’t disappoint you, could he?

A week later, you were out on a recon assignment, somehow ending up drawing the short end of the stick and being assigned as Loki’s ‘handler’ for the day. He was supposed to be investigating magical traces in the city, but he seemed much more interested in watching _ you. _“Have you given my words further consideration?” he asked you casually, holding up a hand to stop you from stepping into a crosswalk, just as a car barreled through the redlight. 

You gaped at him. “How did you—”

“My senses are stronger than yours,” he said. “I heard the vehicle begin to accelerate. Answer my question.”

It surprised you that he hadn’t chosen to dwell on the fact that he’d just saved you from being hit by a car, but you took it as a sign of how serious he was. It was a rare thing to see Loki serious. “I have.”

“And?”

“I think we have… well, we do have chemistry. Can’t deny that.”

“And beyond that?” he asked, his voice clipped. “Is there nothing beyond that?”

“No, there’s something.” You took a deep breath. “I don’t want this to end, whatever _ this _is. So…”

“You’ll be mine?”

It was a moment of truth. 

“Yes,” you told him, “but only if you’ll be mine, too.”

Loki smiled. “I think that can be arranged.”

~*~*~*~

He’d never struck you as the type of man prone to infatuation, but once you’d dared to call him yours, Loki quickly became a near-permanent fixture at your side. You didn’t mind his closeness; it felt genuine, and as you spent more and more nights in his bed, you realized how lonely Loki must’ve been. 

In the beginning, you only slept in his bed when it was too late and you were too spent to sneak back to your room. He would roll away from you and cover his eyes with his arm, sighing in satisfaction, and he’d fall asleep as soon as you’d told him you planned to stay. You never felt that he was trying to be callous or distant, but you were always left wondering why he seemed so pleased to have you stay over for the night if he was going to stay so far away from you. 

Your clandestine relationship was already a few weeks old when you woke up during the night to find Loki shivering and twitching on his side of the bed, trapped in some unpleasant dream. His expression was pained, and he flinched when you put a hand on his shoulder, even though he didn’t wake up. “Loki?” you whispered. When he didn’t respond, you tentatively slid closer. “Loki, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

He groaned, but when you gently shook him again, he finally opened his eyes. You’d never seen Loki look frightened before, and it unsettled you, even though it was gone in an instant. “I woke you? I apologize.”

“No, no. Don’t be sorry. Do you want to come closer? You’re about to fall off of the bed.”

“I wouldn’t want to crowd you,” he said. “I am very heavy—”

“I think I’ll survive,” you interrupted, holding out your arms. “Besides, your room is kind of chilly.”

He must’ve needed the excuse, because he moved to the middle of the bed with you, then, allowing you to wrap him in your arms and press your face against his chest. You felt him tremble, and you didn’t comment on it; whatever Loki saw in his dreams, he clearly wasn’t ready to tell anyone about it. You didn’t want to frighten him away.

You found out, weeks later, that his mind was still filled with the whispers of the Tesseract, promises of power and admonishments for his failure to keep her. _ Her, _for Loki spoke of the thing as if it were a person, as if it was an old, long-lost lover. “I hear her,” he told you one night, pulling you closer into his arms. “I don’t want to hear her any longer.”

There were glimpses of madness in his eyes when he woke during these nightmares, flashes of the raw, desperate man that he’d become under the grip of the Mad Titan Thanos and the Other. He claimed that your closeness kept such dreams at bay, and as time passed, they did seem to lessen. He all but moved you into his apartment with him. The rest of the Avengers had to notice. They _ had _ to, but they didn’t say anything. 

Maybe they thought that he’d be more likely to keep himself in check, if he grew attached to a human. 

The missions became more worrying; you’d always worried about something happening to the others, but the idea of something happening to _ him… _ it was unbearable. Loki felt the same way, it seemed, because after you got a minor injury during an assignment in the South Pacific, he marched into the meeting room and demanded that he be paired with you for all assignments. 

Director Fury stared at him. “And why would I do that?” he asked. “It’s good for the team members to rotate. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.”

“I don’t care,” Loki told him. “I am going to be with her, one way or another. If none of you can keep her safe, then I will.”

Fury had agreed. 

You waited until you’d arrived back at your apartment to question him. There was really no reason to call it _ his _any longer, given the photos of the two of you on the walls, the furniture and decorations and plush throw blankets that had migrated over the months from your apartment to his. It had become a safe haven shared by the both of you. 

“Hey,” you said hesitantly. 

Loki settled onto the couch, holding out his arms for you to join him. He seemed pleased. “What is it, darling girl?”

“You just… you know that you basically confirmed that we’re together to everyone, right?”

His expression flickered. “That bothers you?”

“No,” you quickly replied. “I mean, I don’t know if it _ should _ or not, but it doesn’t. I thought that you’d want to keep it a secret, though.”

He laughed. “How could it possibly be kept a secret? They have eyes. I’m sure they’re all thrilled that you’re keeping me tethered to this tedious mortal world.”

You sat in his lap. “I’m tedious?”

“Not you,” he amended, kissing your cheek. “You are brilliant and exciting and delicious, but the _ rest _ of them… Well, there is a reason that I’ve always kept my visits short, in the past.”

There was something shining in his eyes when he smiled at you, something that you were terrified to try to identify. _ Adoration, _ maybe. _ Love. _

He hadn’t said it yet, and neither had you. 

“Is that all it takes to keep you here?” you asked, taking a deep breath to brace yourself for the worst possible answer. “Am I enough?”

“Of course you are,” Loki assured you. He pulled you closer, tucking your head into the crook of his neck, stroking your hair. “Of course you are.”

Three months later, you’d given up any and all pretense of a professional relationship. He’d blatantly flirt with you and wrap his arm around your waist in front of the others, and after an awkward period where everyone seemed baffled, it became more relaxed. _ Comfortable. _ Your relationship with Loki was _ comfortable, _and you never would’ve guessed that such a thing was even possible. 

The dreams grew infrequent. For the first time, Loki seemed truly content. The rest of the team was pleased enough by his change in attitude that they overlooked the impropriety of it all, and for a time, you believed in the dream of happily ever after. 

“I love you,” he told you one night, sitting across the table over the dinner the two of you had just finished making together. He said it simply, a statement of fact. When you dropped your spoon in surprise, he smiled gently. “You do not need to feel obligated to return the sentiment,” he said, “but I thought that you should know.”

Your world seemed to glow golden, and you blinked back tears. “Really?” you asked.

“Of course. Couldn’t you tell?”

You reached across the table and took his hand in yours. “I love you, too.”

He let out a nervous, relieved little laugh. “I suppose we are both ruined, then.”

“Yeah,” you replied, smiling as one of the tears managed to escape and roll down your cheek. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

He asked you to marry him the following spring. There was a garden on the roof, and when the first of the flowers began to bloom, he brought you up and promised you that he’d marry you in the gardens of the palace of Asgard someday. “I’ll bring you there,” he promised. “I’ll see that you have immortality, that you are always by my side. I cannot bear to lose you.”

You told him that he shouldn’t make promises that he couldn’t keep. You’d be happy marrying him right then and there, or anywhere, for that matter. You didn’t need wealth, and you didn’t need power… but you couldn’t help but despair over the prospect of your own mortality.

_ If _ Loki could offer it to you, would you take it?

Loki remained on shaky ground with the rest of the Nine Realms, Asgard in particular. Thor had managed to work out something of a family truce, but the Allfather had all but banned Loki from Asgard, as he refused to follow any of the rules set for his ‘penance.’ You sincerely doubted that Odin would be pleased to suddenly welcome his wayward son back into the fold, especially with the added complication of a mortal bride. 

He told you that he’d talk to his brother. “See how much I adore you?” he teased. “I am willing to ask Thor for his help. Is there any greater show of my love?”

You smiled and told him that you adored him, too. 

Thor tried. He truly did, and you were grateful to him for it. Odin, on the other hand, was unyielding. He wouldn’t allow Loki to ‘come and go as he pleased.’ He wouldn’t allow _ you _to wed a Prince of Asgard - even a disgraced, banished one - with his blessing. 

Thor pulled you aside and quietly reassured you that he would keep pleading your case. “You are good for my brother,” he said. “And when I am king—”

“I might be dead before you’re king,” you told him, smiling bitterly. You patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to snap. I’m just…”

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

Loki’s restlessness returned. 

He was desperate to find a way to keep you, against the laws of time and all common sense. He tried to act calm, to act as happy and satisfied as he’d been in the months before, but it was a mask. You knew him too well, by then, to be fooled by the mask. 

His nightmares followed his restlessness. 

“I am going to _ lose _ you,” he told you one night, his eyes bleary and still half-viewing whatever terrors he’d seen in his sleep. “I’m going to lose you. I cannot—”

“It’s going to be okay,” you soothed. You brushed back the hair clinging to his cheeks; it had begun to grow long, ever since he found out you liked it better that way. “It’ll all be okay.”

After that, Loki began disappearing from the Tower again. It was concerning, but you hoped that his search for answers might turn up something that would soothe his worries. You were fragile, he’d told you on more than one occasion. Fragile and ephemeral, and he would rather feel any pain than the pain of losing you. 

You tried to tell yourself that maybe Thor would succeed in convincing Odin to allow you immortality. You feared that Loki was going to waste all of your time together trying to prevent your death. 

He was happy when you were together, as he’d always been, but there was a sense of tension and foreboding, a slight worry line beginning to show in the crease of his brow. When you made love, he exulted you with praise and promises of eternity, and when you asked him if he regretted loving a mortal, he always vehemently denied it. 

“You are my dearest treasure,” he said. “I _ will _ find a way. I will do whatever it takes.”

When the news came that the Tesseract had been stolen from Asgard, you and Loki had your first true fight. Odin requested Earth’s assistance in retrieving the accursed thing from the scorched, devastated realm where it had been taken. Loki had the best chance of retrieving it, everyone said. He could sense it, could track the signature of its power. 

“This could be your salvation,” he told you, his eyes flashing. _ “Our _ salvation. Isn’t that what you claim to want - a future by my side?”

“I want you to stay far away from that _ thing,” _you cried. “You’ve lost too much to it already, Loki.”

“Odin will have no choice but to grant you an apple of immortality if I return the Tesseract to him. Don’t you see that? And if he continues to refuse… if he refuses me, I will hold an object more than powerful enough to persuade him.”

None of the others would listen to you, and Loki was hellbent on going on the mission, anyway. In the end, the best that you could do was tag along, just to make sure that if and when things went horribly wrong, you’d be there by his side. 

The sorcerers who’d stolen the thing from Asgard’s vaults had retreated to a blackened, volcanic pocket of mountains on a world far from Earth, determined to keep their prize from the clutches of gods and men. Your team quickly became separated while trying to fight your way through their ranks, and soon, you and Loki stood alone, farther up the mountains than any of the others. Dread pricked at your heart. 

“Hurry,” Loki urged you. “We are close; I can feel her.”

_ Her. _

Your blood ran cold. 

The last and strongest of the sorcerers was maddened by the power of the Tesseract, and a fearsome fighter. He couldn’t hold onto the thing for long, though, and when it sapped his power and fell from his burned hands, Loki snuck in a fatal blow. 

His eyes were wide, almost _ reverent _ as he stepped towards the glowing blue cube dropped so carelessly into the dust, and beneath you, the mountain began to groan and rumble, a final defense against a battle that had already been lost. 

“Loki, wait for the others!”

A crack split open between you. He didn’t seem to notice, crouching down beside the Tesseract and its slain, short-term master. 

“Don’t!” you screamed, trying to reach his side before he picked it up. 

You didn’t. 

“There you are,” he whispered, his voice somehow cutting though the groaning of the rocks and the howl of the wind and steam and the cries of your teammates, far below. 

You could hear _ her, _ too, an insidious, nearly-indecipherable hiss. Whatever the Tesseract was saying to him, Loki seemed completely enthralled. The ground began to crumble more rapidly, steam spraying up from below, and before you could reach him, a chasm opened between you. You grabbed ahold of a spur of rock, seconds away from tumbling over the edge. 

“Loki!” you called. “Loki, put it down!”

_ Why would he, mortal? _ the voice asked, sibilant inside of your head. It echoed over and over again, increasingly mocking, soon overlaid with a woman’s cold laugh. _ I am Reality. I am Change. I am all that his heart desires. _

You were practically howling, then, overcome by anger and rage and fear. “Put it down! You _ know _ that it isn’t true. You _ know _ you don’t need the Tesseract, Loki.”

He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away; it was almost like you weren’t even there. 

“Please,” you begged, reaching out one hand for him, tears streaming down your cheeks. The heat was blistering, spires of fire bursting up from the cracks in the stone far below. “Please, Loki, don’t do it.”

He turned to look at you, his eyes wide. _ Blue. Bright. _You sobbed; you knew what he was going to do. She already had him. 

“I pity you, mortal,” he said, and the cruel little smirk on his lips broke what was left of your heart, even as the rocks beneath you continued to collapse back into the mountain. “You are too small-minded to understand the sacrifices needed to attain true freedom. True _ power.” _

“You don’t need power!” you cried. You strained to reach across the gap, hoping that if you could just _ touch _ him, maybe you could bring him back, could make him see reason. “You said I was _ enough.” _

His lip curled. “You could never have been enough.” 

There was a sharp, physical pain in your chest, and some part of you wondered if there was even any point in holding on at all. “You said you _ loved _ me.”

The Tesseract flickered in his hands. “I lied,” he said, and then the blue glow of the Tesseract enveloped him entirely, and he was gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt, "A proposition: Loki choosing between [reader] and the tessaract 👀 a n g s t"


End file.
